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Title: Underground
Author: surreysmum
Pairing: Nikolai Luzhin (Eastern Promises) / Drew Baylor (Elizabethtown)
Rating: NC-17
A/N: My sincere thanks to my wonderful friend Nancy for the beta, special gratitude to Tati for helping with Russian diminutives, and big hugs totularia for the awesome gift of the banner.
This story is dedicated to Nancy on the occasion of her birthday.
Nikolai parked his motorbike right at the back of the LT parking lot, heaved his small backpack over one shoulder, and glanced around to make sure he was not observed. It was dusk, and there was no sign of life at all from the old Underground car. He told himself he was on a fool's errand.
Nonetheless, he strode briskly through the field, then made his way up the more sheltered side of the car, past the only partly-coloured graffiti letters. "Yorks." Or was it "Yoicks"? He tapped casually, gently against one of the windows.
No face appeared in response, and he started to turn away. But then he heard the metallic clunk of the door at the end of the car, and Drew appeared, peering out into the dusk.
"You came back!" he exclaimed. "I couldn't believe it when I saw it was you! Come in, come in." He ushered Nikolai into his temporary home.
"I brought you something to eat." Nikolai reached into his backpack and pulled out a couple of styrofoam containers and a large bottle of water, full this time.
Drew exclaimed again over the hot food. "This is so... so incredibly kind of you," he got out between ravenous bites.
"No big deal. I work at restaurant," Nikolai told him. He put his feet up on a dusty, greenish seat and settled back, lazily watching as Drew stuffed himself with Chicken Kiev, enjoying the young man's uninhibited haste.
The second styrofoam container was full of a sticky, flaky mess. "Baklava?" asked Drew, licking the honey blissfully from his lips.
"Baklava - very Russian," agreed Nikolai drolly. He shrugged. "It sells well."
Drew stopped in mid-bite. "God, you must think I'm an Ugly American,' he said. "Would you like some?"
Nikolai shook his head. "I ate already." He caught Drew's eye. "And no, I only think you are American."
The compliment was oblique enough to be ignored, but Drew made no pretence. "Thank you," he replied a little shyly, and then turned his full attention back to the baklava. Nikolai handed him a paper towel just as he started to look around for something to wipe his sticky fingers on. Nikolai's thought about how better to clean those fingers must have been visible in his face, because Drew gave him a sudden sidewise glance and smiled a little.
"Are you ready to go home now?" asked Nikolai abruptly. He wondered why the hell that had become important to him.
"I suppose I'll have to," replied Drew soberly. "Subway cars aren't really made for sleeping, and I can't keep relying on kindly strangers for meals on wheels..."
Nikolai thought for a moment. "I will make you a deal," he said. "I will go to your hotel and check out for you, bring your things to you tomorrow night, and drive you to the airport." The astonished pleasure in Drew's eyes was his immediate reward. "In return, you will tell me the story of why you are here in London, and why an American gangster is shooting at you." And if there were ever a more obvious excuse for spending time in a young man's company, Nikolai hadn't heard of it.
"Well, it's not very interesting," Drew demurred. "I'm just in London as a tourist; I've been through a bit of a rough time lately, and my Mom and my sister gave me some money to take a holiday, see some sights."
"A rough time?"
And so the story came out, in long, winding, illogical sentences: the whole sorry saga of eight years devoted to developing the prophetically named Spasmotica, the ultimate athletic shoe that completely failed to sell. Drew's features hardened as he told how his boss Phil had insisted Drew throw himself on his sword, taking full responsibility for the fiasco, in an effort to save Mercury Worldwide Shoes. Drew had heard it hadn't worked; the company had nearly gone under, rescued at the last minute at bargain basement price by a multinational company. But that hadn't helped the original stockholders one little bit.
"Do you think that's why the Scary Otto guy tried to kill me?" asked Drew. "Maybe his family were stockholders?" His look of bewildered innocence was sheer intoxication to Nikolai. "I didn't know that gangsters invested in - well, you know, shoes and things…"
Nikolai chuckled very slightly. "Like everybody else, they invest where money is to be made."
"But I'm not important enough to chase across the Atlantic and kill."
Nikolai patted his shoulder. "No, you're not. I told you, he was only trying to scare you. I had a long conversation with Mr. Sgariotto's hit-man today, and he was in London on quite other business." Which, he added to himself, he will most certainly not be carrying out. "Likely he recognized you from the magazines, and the boss told him to go ahead and give you a bad moment."
Drew shuddered.
The last of the dusk had disappeared now, and they were speaking quietly in near-total darkness.
"Eight years buried in the office," mused Nikolai aloud. "How did your wife feel about that?"
"No wife," replied Drew. "And actually nobody serious in all that time."
"Truly?"
"There was a woman, for a few weeks, just after the whole thing blew up," Drew continued.
Ah. Ah, well. Better luck next time, Nikolai.
"But she moved on fast; I couldn't hold her interest. She was kind of a flaky girl. Or maybe she figured out that I really pref… My God, what was that?"
Nikolai hushed Drew's startled exclamation at the loud thump on the outside of the carriage. A raucous chorus of youthful voices, shouting instructions and cheerfully obscene insults, gave evidence that the graffiti artists had returned to work on their masterpiece. Nikolai beckoned Drew, and they sat quietly on the floor at one of the doors, invisible below window level. Drew was quick on the uptake, to Nikolai's relief. No point in making an incident.
The width of the doorway was confined for two grown men, and in the blackness Nikolai was aware of Drew's breaths, his fidgets, his warmth, his pleasing aroma. A man living rough for two days has no business smelling so good. Nikolai was amused.
Drew took a breath to whisper, and Nikolai immediately shook his head. Drew nodded, accepting the prohibition.
"That bit was supposed to be green, you fuckin' cunt!" bawled a young man no more than a foot from their heads. Nikolai felt Drew hold his breath and then release it with a little sigh as booted feet stomped away. Drew seized Nikolai's hand in the blackness, and brought the palm audaciously to his lips.
In his shock Nikolai nearly spoke. Instead he turned his head, his face a scant inch from Drew's. Warm, hurried breaths chased across Nikolai's lips.
With a muffled noise deep in his throat, Nikolai put a hand to the back of the boy's head and drew him into a hungry kiss, savouring the honey sweetness of the baklava, and something sweeter still. His powers of observation lasted a few seconds longer. Drew was no novice; after a yielding second, he answered fully, welcoming Nikolai's questing tongue and insisting gently with his own until Nikolai, too, let himself be explored. Then Nikolai stopped thinking. The little bullet in which he locked himself melted away like sticky candy and in a few moments of rapturous insanity he poured all of himself into Drew's kiss.
He drew back. Nikolai Luzhin feared nothing, but he was terrified by this. He wanted to get up and leave, but the hooligans were still clanging around outside. What had this young man done to him? This boy could be anything - just what he seemed, or a hooker, or a plant by one of the many enemies Nikolai had earned over the years…
Drew's hand touched his face tentatively, and the other tugged at his shoulder. Nikolai brushed the young man's lips with his own, then holding the fingers against his face, shook his head emphatically so that Drew would understand.
Sensing the younger man's distress, he slid an arm around him, caressing the boy's arm sporadically and tenderly. For fifteen long minutes they sat together in their cramped space, wordless, awkward, and yet both somehow very glad of the contact.
"Shite! Coppers!" yelled one of the painters outside. A few seconds later, a powerful beam swept around and perfunctorily inside the car.
"All clear, Joe. The little fuckers have scarpered," came a new voice.
Then there was silence. Eventually Nikolai rose to his feet. "I must go now," he said in a low tone.
"Did I offend you?" asked Drew. "What did I do wrong?" Though he pitched his tone to match the Russian's, the emotion in his voice was evident.
"No," replied Nikolai, a little roughly. "Nothing wrong. Do you have your hotel keycard?"
Drew found it in his jacket pocket and handed it over. "How will you settle my bill? You can't sign my credit card slip! You'll need cash."
"It will be fine," said Nikolai dismissively. But Drew insisted on pulling out his wallet.
"Damn, I can't see it," he muttered. "Take it all - I went to a cash dispenser, just before… just before everything. So there should be enough."
Nikolai accepted the cash without comment, mentally resolving to return it hidden amongst Drew's possessions the following night.
"You should be on your way," Drew said, his voice just a little hard.
"Yes." But Nikolai did not leave. Instead he brought his hand to Drew's face, and ran a thumb slowly across one cheek. "I apologize," he said at last. "I will see you tomorrow at nightfall."
"Will you?" asked Drew, stepping back.
"I am man of my word, Drew."
In the utter blackness, Nikolai heard everything: the sharp breath Drew took to utter a reproach, the pause and rustle of baffled fingers through hair, and the soft, confused words that eventually emerged. "OK. Thank you for everything you've done. I mean that."
"My pleasure," Nikolai replied formally, and made his way out into the dark.
-/-/-/-
"You are very late!" complained Kirill. "Where have you been, Kolya?"
"Had a delivery to make," replied Nikolai, pushing past into the restaurant's kitchen to grab a bite to eat.
"I missed you," said Kirill, clumsily flirtatious. "Come upstairs."
"Not now, Kirill," replied Nikolai through a mouthful of food. "I am tired."
"What do you mean, not now? Come upstairs! That's an order!"
Nikolai gave him a bleak stare, but Kirill was wilfully impervious. He grabbed Nikolai's sleeve and hustled him up the stairs. Nikolai, still chewing and definitely annoyed, went with him. Though the restaurant had been closed for hours, plenty of people had keys. Better to settle this in private.
Kirill slammed the door shut behind them. He pulled Nikolai's coat from his shoulders and flung it in a corner. His hands went to Nikolai's shirt buttons, but Nikolai stopped him with a firm grip at his wrists.
"No, Kirill." He turned away.
"Don't tell me no!" Kirill's hands reached around Nikolai's shoulders from the back and ripped his shirt violently half off. "You do as I say, you dumb Siberian ox! I own you!"
Nikolai turned back with a dangerous look in his eye. "Calm down, Kirill," was all he said.
"Calm down, Kirill! Always calm down, calm down!" He jabbed at one of the vor stars on Nikolai's shoulders. "Who got you those, huh? You owe me everything! Don't fucking tell me to calm down. You're not my fucking father!"
If I were your father, you'd be curled up screaming on the ground right now. Nikolai held on to his temper with a massive effort. "I wear the stars on my knees too," he reminded the other man.
"Maybe you don't kneel to other men, but you will kneel to me, you cocksucker!" growled Kirill, advancing on Nikolai and trying with his greater weight to force Nikolai to the floor.
"Enough!" snarled Nikolai. The next thing Kirill knew, he was slammed up against the wall and the tip of a sharp knife was pricking at the skin of his neck. "Now, be calm."
Kirill swallowed hard, and stopped fighting. "Don't hurt me," he said in a suddenly small voice. Nikolai forced back a wave of disgust at Semyon Volkov, that he could have brought his son to this. "I do not wish to hurt you, Kirill," he said, and, point made, let him go. Kirill collapsed onto a chair with his head in his hands, trying to hide the sobs.
Sighing, Nikolai went to his own room, dressed himself quickly and went out into the park, to a bench that was well out in the open. Then, satisfied that he could not be overheard, he made the call.
tularia's wonderful banner!
Title: Underground
Author: surreysmum
Pairing: Nikolai Luzhin (Eastern Promises) / Drew Baylor (Elizabethtown)
Rating: NC-17
A/N: My sincere thanks to my wonderful friend Nancy for the beta, special gratitude to Tati for helping with Russian diminutives, and big hugs to
tularia for the awesome gift of the banner.This story is dedicated to Nancy on the occasion of her birthday.
Nikolai parked his motorbike right at the back of the LT parking lot, heaved his small backpack over one shoulder, and glanced around to make sure he was not observed. It was dusk, and there was no sign of life at all from the old Underground car. He told himself he was on a fool's errand.
Nonetheless, he strode briskly through the field, then made his way up the more sheltered side of the car, past the only partly-coloured graffiti letters. "Yorks." Or was it "Yoicks"? He tapped casually, gently against one of the windows.
No face appeared in response, and he started to turn away. But then he heard the metallic clunk of the door at the end of the car, and Drew appeared, peering out into the dusk.
"You came back!" he exclaimed. "I couldn't believe it when I saw it was you! Come in, come in." He ushered Nikolai into his temporary home.
"I brought you something to eat." Nikolai reached into his backpack and pulled out a couple of styrofoam containers and a large bottle of water, full this time.
Drew exclaimed again over the hot food. "This is so... so incredibly kind of you," he got out between ravenous bites.
"No big deal. I work at restaurant," Nikolai told him. He put his feet up on a dusty, greenish seat and settled back, lazily watching as Drew stuffed himself with Chicken Kiev, enjoying the young man's uninhibited haste.
The second styrofoam container was full of a sticky, flaky mess. "Baklava?" asked Drew, licking the honey blissfully from his lips.
"Baklava - very Russian," agreed Nikolai drolly. He shrugged. "It sells well."
Drew stopped in mid-bite. "God, you must think I'm an Ugly American,' he said. "Would you like some?"
Nikolai shook his head. "I ate already." He caught Drew's eye. "And no, I only think you are American."
The compliment was oblique enough to be ignored, but Drew made no pretence. "Thank you," he replied a little shyly, and then turned his full attention back to the baklava. Nikolai handed him a paper towel just as he started to look around for something to wipe his sticky fingers on. Nikolai's thought about how better to clean those fingers must have been visible in his face, because Drew gave him a sudden sidewise glance and smiled a little.
"Are you ready to go home now?" asked Nikolai abruptly. He wondered why the hell that had become important to him.
"I suppose I'll have to," replied Drew soberly. "Subway cars aren't really made for sleeping, and I can't keep relying on kindly strangers for meals on wheels..."
Nikolai thought for a moment. "I will make you a deal," he said. "I will go to your hotel and check out for you, bring your things to you tomorrow night, and drive you to the airport." The astonished pleasure in Drew's eyes was his immediate reward. "In return, you will tell me the story of why you are here in London, and why an American gangster is shooting at you." And if there were ever a more obvious excuse for spending time in a young man's company, Nikolai hadn't heard of it.
"Well, it's not very interesting," Drew demurred. "I'm just in London as a tourist; I've been through a bit of a rough time lately, and my Mom and my sister gave me some money to take a holiday, see some sights."
"A rough time?"
And so the story came out, in long, winding, illogical sentences: the whole sorry saga of eight years devoted to developing the prophetically named Spasmotica, the ultimate athletic shoe that completely failed to sell. Drew's features hardened as he told how his boss Phil had insisted Drew throw himself on his sword, taking full responsibility for the fiasco, in an effort to save Mercury Worldwide Shoes. Drew had heard it hadn't worked; the company had nearly gone under, rescued at the last minute at bargain basement price by a multinational company. But that hadn't helped the original stockholders one little bit.
"Do you think that's why the Scary Otto guy tried to kill me?" asked Drew. "Maybe his family were stockholders?" His look of bewildered innocence was sheer intoxication to Nikolai. "I didn't know that gangsters invested in - well, you know, shoes and things…"
Nikolai chuckled very slightly. "Like everybody else, they invest where money is to be made."
"But I'm not important enough to chase across the Atlantic and kill."
Nikolai patted his shoulder. "No, you're not. I told you, he was only trying to scare you. I had a long conversation with Mr. Sgariotto's hit-man today, and he was in London on quite other business." Which, he added to himself, he will most certainly not be carrying out. "Likely he recognized you from the magazines, and the boss told him to go ahead and give you a bad moment."
Drew shuddered.
The last of the dusk had disappeared now, and they were speaking quietly in near-total darkness.
"Eight years buried in the office," mused Nikolai aloud. "How did your wife feel about that?"
"No wife," replied Drew. "And actually nobody serious in all that time."
"Truly?"
"There was a woman, for a few weeks, just after the whole thing blew up," Drew continued.
Ah. Ah, well. Better luck next time, Nikolai.
"But she moved on fast; I couldn't hold her interest. She was kind of a flaky girl. Or maybe she figured out that I really pref… My God, what was that?"
Nikolai hushed Drew's startled exclamation at the loud thump on the outside of the carriage. A raucous chorus of youthful voices, shouting instructions and cheerfully obscene insults, gave evidence that the graffiti artists had returned to work on their masterpiece. Nikolai beckoned Drew, and they sat quietly on the floor at one of the doors, invisible below window level. Drew was quick on the uptake, to Nikolai's relief. No point in making an incident.
The width of the doorway was confined for two grown men, and in the blackness Nikolai was aware of Drew's breaths, his fidgets, his warmth, his pleasing aroma. A man living rough for two days has no business smelling so good. Nikolai was amused.
Drew took a breath to whisper, and Nikolai immediately shook his head. Drew nodded, accepting the prohibition.
"That bit was supposed to be green, you fuckin' cunt!" bawled a young man no more than a foot from their heads. Nikolai felt Drew hold his breath and then release it with a little sigh as booted feet stomped away. Drew seized Nikolai's hand in the blackness, and brought the palm audaciously to his lips.
In his shock Nikolai nearly spoke. Instead he turned his head, his face a scant inch from Drew's. Warm, hurried breaths chased across Nikolai's lips.
With a muffled noise deep in his throat, Nikolai put a hand to the back of the boy's head and drew him into a hungry kiss, savouring the honey sweetness of the baklava, and something sweeter still. His powers of observation lasted a few seconds longer. Drew was no novice; after a yielding second, he answered fully, welcoming Nikolai's questing tongue and insisting gently with his own until Nikolai, too, let himself be explored. Then Nikolai stopped thinking. The little bullet in which he locked himself melted away like sticky candy and in a few moments of rapturous insanity he poured all of himself into Drew's kiss.
He drew back. Nikolai Luzhin feared nothing, but he was terrified by this. He wanted to get up and leave, but the hooligans were still clanging around outside. What had this young man done to him? This boy could be anything - just what he seemed, or a hooker, or a plant by one of the many enemies Nikolai had earned over the years…
Drew's hand touched his face tentatively, and the other tugged at his shoulder. Nikolai brushed the young man's lips with his own, then holding the fingers against his face, shook his head emphatically so that Drew would understand.
Sensing the younger man's distress, he slid an arm around him, caressing the boy's arm sporadically and tenderly. For fifteen long minutes they sat together in their cramped space, wordless, awkward, and yet both somehow very glad of the contact.
"Shite! Coppers!" yelled one of the painters outside. A few seconds later, a powerful beam swept around and perfunctorily inside the car.
"All clear, Joe. The little fuckers have scarpered," came a new voice.
Then there was silence. Eventually Nikolai rose to his feet. "I must go now," he said in a low tone.
"Did I offend you?" asked Drew. "What did I do wrong?" Though he pitched his tone to match the Russian's, the emotion in his voice was evident.
"No," replied Nikolai, a little roughly. "Nothing wrong. Do you have your hotel keycard?"
Drew found it in his jacket pocket and handed it over. "How will you settle my bill? You can't sign my credit card slip! You'll need cash."
"It will be fine," said Nikolai dismissively. But Drew insisted on pulling out his wallet.
"Damn, I can't see it," he muttered. "Take it all - I went to a cash dispenser, just before… just before everything. So there should be enough."
Nikolai accepted the cash without comment, mentally resolving to return it hidden amongst Drew's possessions the following night.
"You should be on your way," Drew said, his voice just a little hard.
"Yes." But Nikolai did not leave. Instead he brought his hand to Drew's face, and ran a thumb slowly across one cheek. "I apologize," he said at last. "I will see you tomorrow at nightfall."
"Will you?" asked Drew, stepping back.
"I am man of my word, Drew."
In the utter blackness, Nikolai heard everything: the sharp breath Drew took to utter a reproach, the pause and rustle of baffled fingers through hair, and the soft, confused words that eventually emerged. "OK. Thank you for everything you've done. I mean that."
"My pleasure," Nikolai replied formally, and made his way out into the dark.
-/-/-/-
"You are very late!" complained Kirill. "Where have you been, Kolya?"
"Had a delivery to make," replied Nikolai, pushing past into the restaurant's kitchen to grab a bite to eat.
"I missed you," said Kirill, clumsily flirtatious. "Come upstairs."
"Not now, Kirill," replied Nikolai through a mouthful of food. "I am tired."
"What do you mean, not now? Come upstairs! That's an order!"
Nikolai gave him a bleak stare, but Kirill was wilfully impervious. He grabbed Nikolai's sleeve and hustled him up the stairs. Nikolai, still chewing and definitely annoyed, went with him. Though the restaurant had been closed for hours, plenty of people had keys. Better to settle this in private.
Kirill slammed the door shut behind them. He pulled Nikolai's coat from his shoulders and flung it in a corner. His hands went to Nikolai's shirt buttons, but Nikolai stopped him with a firm grip at his wrists.
"No, Kirill." He turned away.
"Don't tell me no!" Kirill's hands reached around Nikolai's shoulders from the back and ripped his shirt violently half off. "You do as I say, you dumb Siberian ox! I own you!"
Nikolai turned back with a dangerous look in his eye. "Calm down, Kirill," was all he said.
"Calm down, Kirill! Always calm down, calm down!" He jabbed at one of the vor stars on Nikolai's shoulders. "Who got you those, huh? You owe me everything! Don't fucking tell me to calm down. You're not my fucking father!"
If I were your father, you'd be curled up screaming on the ground right now. Nikolai held on to his temper with a massive effort. "I wear the stars on my knees too," he reminded the other man.
"Maybe you don't kneel to other men, but you will kneel to me, you cocksucker!" growled Kirill, advancing on Nikolai and trying with his greater weight to force Nikolai to the floor.
"Enough!" snarled Nikolai. The next thing Kirill knew, he was slammed up against the wall and the tip of a sharp knife was pricking at the skin of his neck. "Now, be calm."
Kirill swallowed hard, and stopped fighting. "Don't hurt me," he said in a suddenly small voice. Nikolai forced back a wave of disgust at Semyon Volkov, that he could have brought his son to this. "I do not wish to hurt you, Kirill," he said, and, point made, let him go. Kirill collapsed onto a chair with his head in his hands, trying to hide the sobs.
Sighing, Nikolai went to his own room, dressed himself quickly and went out into the park, to a bench that was well out in the open. Then, satisfied that he could not be overheard, he made the call.
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Date: 2009-11-17 08:17 pm (UTC)I am happy that Nikolai was not made to touch, and I am very curious to know who is calling.
Thank you.
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Date: 2009-11-18 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-17 09:38 pm (UTC)I feel bad for Kirill... kind of, but at the same time, he deserves what is coming to him... the call... is it THE call?
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Date: 2009-11-18 04:06 am (UTC)I hope the third trip to the Underground car won't disappoint!
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Date: 2009-11-17 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-18 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-18 06:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-18 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-22 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-22 06:05 pm (UTC)